As far as i know this would be maths based so the advantages are you can scale to any size and always keep high quality, you can change the random and as it's maths based you save a load of space where you would otherwise need multiple high res alphas.
So it seems to work a bit like masks but it will give better results, just like most of the other LC tools it would probably work with alpha brushes and the normal masking feature also.

So basically it will just skip versions, this is what i was originally thinking as a lot of company's seem to do that.
I was kind of hoping for some needed GUI updates like a better preset system and a updated resource system with sub folders before V4 as i have requested them for the last year or so but i guess that won't happen. My wallet doesn't like my 3D hobby much as i don't profit from it at the moment but i am sure V4 will be great and having seen all the amazing LiveClay updates recently i am sure it will definitely be worth buying the update.

Happy new year everyone
I posted these in the 3DC updates thread but i will post them here also, there was some great LiveClay updates.
http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/freeze-with-liveclay/
http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/30/end-of-the-year-goodies/
Some of the comments on your blog posts seem to have quite good suggestions for possible updates also. You have done some really amazing work with LiveClay, the Freeze tool looks really good and should hopefully allow the ZB workflow with the Bracelet sculpting.

Farsthary, i think what you want really is tools with the main functionality like the current tools but then with added options like what you were doing with the general brush but only ones that would work well. A Unified/General Brush with a good Preset system would be amazing also.
I like lots of options like you were doing but i think if you make it too general with basically everything in one sometimes it might not work well. However it's great to have the option for this and i have seen some 2D tools such as MyPaint and TwistedBrush have many options and a good user Preset system which work well, so maybe it is possible to do a complex general brush for 3D sculpting that still works well but that would definitely need a better Preset system to take good advantage of it.
One thing i notice ZB/other tools seems to have for tools that 3DC does not so much at the moment is curve controls, these would probably allow some great new options also so if not already in the works maybe another thing that would be good to add. Things like custom curve controls could also have there own presets also.

If this direct voxel paint is as good as it sounds with no need to ever do UVs etc then some of the current painting/texture options would definitely be obsolete. Though if that is the case it might mean the GUI could be optimized a lot i guess.

The LiveClay Flatten tool is looking really useful. There is some previews available, the second test is the latest but i have included a link to the first version also.
LC based Flatten tool -
http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/lc-based-flatten-tool/
LC Flatten tool second test -
http://farsthary.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/lc-flatten-tool-second-test/

In surface mode the Extrude tool needs a Detail input that the other tools like LiveClay. If you extrude it uses the resolution of the current area so you need to sculpt with high detail before for it to work well.
So this would be useful as you could always extrude with the required detail directly without workarounds.

A lot of people judge the quality of 3D programs via it's renders or sculpts, when a program get studios and really good artists using it then it will sell itself so the best possible materials system and render engine could only benefit 3DC really. There is a lot of requests at the moment but i think this is a good suggestion that should be done at some point.
For effects i think something which would be much better would be support for GLSL/HLSL effects because that way you could have a nice motion blur but also any number of other useful effects you could think of like chromatic aberration, noise grain, Lens distortion etc. There is also many effects online to download and they could be coded and added to the program at any time also. In my opinion that would be much better than just a few selected effects being available, these could also be used with painting/texturing similar to how photoshop can apply effects to layers/selections.

On other forums the biggest complaint is the sculpting is not as good as ZB/MB however i see some saying it's slow. Sculpting wise there is now LiveClay which just keeps getting better and better. The dotting effect 3DC can make seems like it's about to be fixed also so then it's really just the speed left.
As you say there doesn't seem to be too much difference between the versions at the moment. If 3DC used the GPU/CUDA for as much as it could however then not only would this be great for everyone with a half decent graphics card but i think more studio's would take notice of the program, because they usually have really good gear available so it would be ultra fast even with crazy amounts of detail.

I suggested vector features before, today i looked at the post about the CUDA compiler going open source and found that Nvidia recently released a GPU vector path rendering SDK -
http://3d-coat.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=9083
So hopefully the new SDK/source codes will be useful to Andrew, i think things like SVG textures, text and curves etc run on the GPU with CUDA would be really cool.

Another thing recently posted is a Path Rendering SDK to draw vectors on the GPU -
http://developer.nvidia.com/content/accelerated-path-rendering-videos
Ultra quick vector references, textures, masking and curves etc could only be a good thing really.
There are various tech videos also -
http://developer.nvidia.com/nv-path-rendering-videos
When i see this one i wonder if it could be used to display the GUI, wireframe and grid etc in the CUDA version.